FAU Owls, recovered from flu, look for boost after three straight losses

Team battled flu bug, SEC teams before returning home.

September 25, 2012|By Dieter Kurtenbach, Sun Sentinel

BOCA RATON — Before FAU's 40-7 loss to Alabama, Owls coach Carl Pelini held his weekly roundtable with the media under undesirable circumstances.

Days after his brother, Nebraska coach Bo Pelini, had to be taken to the hospital at halftime of the Cornhuskers' game because of flu symptoms, Carl Pelini was dabbing himself with an embroidered towel. He too had the flu.

A strange coincidence, sure, but an unfortunate one as well. Pelini, still nursing a cold a week later, said Monday that, at one point or another over the past two weeks, half of the FAU team has had the flu.

"Every day it's three different guys," Pelini said between coughs.

But that's no excuse for FAU's play on the team's winless three road-game swing, Pelini said. Now, with the bug past and North Texas heading to Boca Raton to start FAU's Sun Belt Conference season, in earnest, Pelini wants to evolve the hard work and improvement he's seen into the Owls' second win of the season.

"It needs to show up on the field how much hard work they're putting in," Pelini said. "They're pushing themselves, and working to get better. They need to see that all of that is going to lead to some success for them at some point."

"It'd certainly be a boost for everyone."

• Former FAU athletics director Craig Angelos will start a new job Wednesday across the state. Angelos has been hired to work in the USF athletic department as the school's new director of compliance.

Angelos, who was fired, in March, was in charge of the FAU athletic department for eight years. He was replaced by Pat Chun in July.

Angelos' role is charged with overseeing the athletic department's actions to make sure they are in line with federal, state and NCAA laws, rules and guidelines. In Angelos' tenure as athletic director, FAU had no major violations.